


Dubious

by cat_77



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Speculation, dub-con of a non-sexual sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 20:46:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one actually remembered signing any contract.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dubious

**Author's Note:**

> For the "dub-con" square at hc_bingo. I took the concept of dubious consent in a slightly different, and non-sexual, direction.
> 
> * * *
> 
> * * *

Skye freely admitted that she was impressed with the tech at their disposal. True, they hadn't been able to get the same results that she herself had been able to with a simple laptop and a few rigged machines, but she took that as talent over tech. They were good, she was better, and together they could be dangerous.

She wasn't sure she liked that danger, though. Well, she wasn't sure if she liked actual, physical danger versus the romanticized version she sometimes thought about in an admittedly daydreaming sort of way. The real kind was a little more intense, a little more sweaty, and a lot more potentially death-producing.

She also wasn't sure she liked the idea of working for "the man." Big secret government agency with its eyes let alone hands on everything? Yeah, normally she would give that a pass. Something about Coulson though, had her seeing the merits of changing her mind. He was blunt, he was scary, his humor was questionable and that was a pale shadow in comparison to his methods. Still, he really seemed to believe in what he was doing, enough so that he recruited her with her barely realizing she was being recruited. There was a potential to do good here, as much as there was the potential to crash and burn and possibly disappear forever in a not-so-good kind of way.

Him shooting Ward with the truth serum and locking him in the room with her was never going to get old though.

* * *

* * *

Ward did not sign on for this. He didn't. Okay, so he signed on for SHIELD as a whole, with the espionage and the explosions and the actually making a difference in saving the world, even if the world knew nothing about it. Actually, it would be best if the world knew nothing. There were far too many people who would either freak out and do something stupid or would just do something stupid in general due to their own stupidity and the resulting chaos would put far too much and far too many - including innocents - at risk.

He didn't sign on for Geek Guiding duty though, and he definitely didn't sign on for babysitting some flunky conspiracy theorist. Yes, he knew going in that he was at the whims of SHIELD as a whole and that said whims may or may not always be to his liking. He had just thought the whims would continue in the way they had up until this point: using his known strengths to further the cause.

Though the chance to work with the legends that were Phil Coulson and Melinda May, to possibly learn a fraction of what they knew, may just be too good of an opportunity to pass up. 

Even if Coulson shot him with a damn truth serum to make a point. He'd have to work on his resistance training on the chance it happened again. Given the man's unpredictability, it was doubtful, but it never hurt to be prepared.

* * *

* * *

She had her reasons for retiring from the field. Too many good people getting hurt, too much bad intel putting good agents at risk, take your pick - it was all of that and more. Where she had managed to worm her way to, where she had managed to hide, was a place where she could review the existing policies and procedures and create new ones to limit that risk as well as review the actual agents themselves to ensure they were right and ready to be out on the front lines to potentially face those inevitable risks that still slipped by.

It was not glamorous, and it was far beneath her skill level, but it was both safe and ensured the safety of others. Her reputation was enough to keep all but the most stalwart from digging deeper into her reasons, and she rather liked it that way. Nothing save for a direct order from Hill or Fury himself would move her. Unfortunately, Phil knew that as well as she and went just that far.

Worse yet, he paired her with people who should never be put in the field directly. Ward she could deal with and understand on his own level. He was decent agent who knew just what the job entailed, if not the hows behind it. Fitz and Simmons were scientists who were unaware of their surroundings, who saw only data and opportunity versus the results of the actions that produced the very things they were studying. They didn't see the human factor, didn't see the risk to both themselves and to their fellow agents because there was new, there was shiny, there was _more_. They belonged in a lab surrounded by those who knew how to protect them because like hell were they going to protect themselves. Skye was an unknown, neither an agent or truly a civilian. The woman would need to be watched, her abilities weighed and analyzed to see just where on the spectrum she fell: protector or protected.

May was a good soldier though, and would follow her orders. She would use skills far from rusty to keep her ragtag team and whoever got caught in their path safe. 

Someone had to, it might as well be her. Maybe she could actually teach them something in the process.

* * *

* * *

They had met as undergrads and had been bonded to each others' sides ever since. Not literally, of course, except for that one time and they were able to find the solvent after only three hours and it had only cost them two lab tables and an unfortunate centrifuge. They never agreed on who had the best discipline, but both were certain they could combine their talents to create new and amazing advances in fields others probably had yet to dream of.

SHIELD had approached them pretty much as soon as they stepped away from the podium after a particularly fantastic presentation. The opportunity to both work with and create technology that was out of this world - literally in some cases - was far too good to pass up. Simmons said yes and Fitz followed because neither one of them were anything without their lab partners. They were at their best when together, when feeding off of each other's ideas and energies and while, yes, one of them could have done it alone, it would be but a fraction of what they could achieve together.

They were lauded for their ability to think on their feet, to work out solutions of the usually non-chemical kind in limited timeframes. When presented with the chance to do so in a new setting, in the living lab of the real world, with first dibs on anything found and near unlimited resources, neither could pass it up even as neither received full data as to just what the job may entail. The agent in charge seemed accustomed to dealing with their slightly abnormal version of genius, and encouraged them to think outside the box. He also encouraged them to leave the safety of their well-stocked mobile safe haven and see what the actual living results of their processes had achieved.

The data were still incoming and the processing far from complete, but the potential for learning was astronomical.

* * *

* * *

This job was going to kill him. Well, kill him for a second time. While the near unlimited expenditures and near unlimited jurisdiction were beyond nice, the people assigned to this little group were beyond stressful. True, he did hand-select most of them and he had his reasons for doing so, but they were still in the tentative bonding stage that would either make or break a team and it was taking quite the effort to push them towards the making and away from the breaking point. They were good people, smart and talented, but if they didn't figure out how to make those talents work together to form a cohesive whole, they may just destroy each other and take him with them in the process.

Which led him back to the whole "death" thing. He knew his supposed death was a prime reason for the incredible leeway he was currently granted. He also knew both Nick and Maria were hiding something about that death, and not just its lack of permanence with a certain group of now world-renowned heroes he had managed to coerce together. He was both too good of an agent and had worked with them for far too long not to notice the stony shadow to Hill's eyes or the tightness to Fury's jaw whenever they spoke not of his demise, but of his return.

They still didn't get that he knew, of course. He didn't know it all, and he didn't know the specifics, but he knew there was far more to his return than a few talented doctors and a trip to a tropical island. With two incredibly green yet incredibly brilliant scientists loyal to seeing what they could discover in the world versus being cogs in the clandestine machine, an agent possibly more jaded than he himself whose driving force was to ensure the protection of those at risk, an agent known for taking risks to get the job done, and a free thinker with ties to no one and who had already erased at least one persona in the past, he felt he may just have the tools he needed to figure out what actually happened to him and why.

The trick would be to keep these tools from knowing just what they were doing until he held those answers in his hands.

 

End.


End file.
